Author: Dr Kevin Hall

Part 7 | Educational Leadership Series – The Way Bahamas A Bahamian educator’s encounter with a chronically absent student opens a national conversation about attendance, learning loss, and community responsibility across the Caribbean. The Story: A Missing Student Ms. Grant opened her attendance log on Monday morning and frowned. Three students had missed four days in a row. One name stood out — Trevor B. He had been in class the previous Friday, but Monday and Tuesday he was marked absent. Wednesday he was listed as “excused” but with no explanation. Thursday and Friday followed the same pattern. After class,…

Culture & Politics Series — The Way | Bahamas At Nassau’s Lynden Pindling International Airport, weary passengers step off a chartered flight from Jamaica—mothers clutching toddlers, students returning home from universities, and families reunited after two anxious days abroad. The winds have calmed, but the stories are just beginning. Hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods have long been the Caribbean’s uninvited guests. Yet, time after time, what emerges from these trials isn’t just survival—it’s solidarity.From the Bahamas’ quick airlifts to Jamaica’s storm shelters, from Trinidad’s Coast Guard evacuations to Barbados sending supplies north—the Caribbean stands up for its own. When disaster looms,…

Culture & Politics Series — The Way | Bahamas The supermarket aisles in Kingston are crowded—flashlights, water, canned goods, and batteries flying off shelves. Outside, the first winds of a tropical storm ripple through the palms. Across the Caribbean, the same ritual unfolds: anxious eyes fixed on weather maps, radios humming with updates, neighbors helping neighbors batten down. A storm is brewing again, this time edging toward Jamaica, with projections showing possible impacts on The Bahamas within days. It’s the rhythm of life in the tropics—equal parts fear and faith. Preparing for the Inevitable For those who live in hurricane…

Culture & Politics Series — The Way | Bahamas The fluorescent lights hum quietly in the cafeteria of a federal building in Maryland.But the cash register sits idle.Maria, a single mother of two and a federal security officer, hasn’t worked in two weeks—another government shutdown. Her bills pile up on the counter while she waits for Congress to strike a deal that seems forever just “a few votes away.” By the second week, she’s standing in line at a food pantry—one of many pop-up centers organized by churches and volunteer networks to feed thousands of unpaid government workers. She isn’t…

Part 6 | Educational Leadership Series – The Way Bahamas What campus unrest in the United States can teach us about collaborative leadership, decision-making, and shared governance—from Ivy League boardrooms to Caribbean universities. The Moment of Unrest When Columbia University’s campus erupted in protest over administrative policy decisions, one image captured the nation’s attention—a circle of professors standing arm-in-arm between police barricades and students. They weren’t there to fuel resistance but to mediate trust. Their message was simple: Listen to us. Let us lead with you. It was a defining test of shared governance—the collaborative decision-making framework that balances administrative…

Part 5 | Educational Leadership Series – The Way Bahamas Jordan’s Choice Jordan counts the bills on her kitchen table for the third time this week. A sophomore at a mid-sized public university in Georgia, she’s working two part-time jobs and still coming up short. Her tuition has climbed again—just over $11,000 this semester. The federal Pell Grant covers less than half; the rest sits on a credit-card statement and a student loan account she’s afraid to open. She stares at the unpaid balance and wonders: Is it worth it? Jordan’s story is no outlier—it’s the new face of higher…

Policy Considerations Part 5 | Educational Leadership Series – The Way Bahamas The Economic Architecture of Inequality The cost of higher education in the United States has become a structural barrier to access and equity. Over the past two decades, tuition and mandatory fees have increased by more than 141 percent at public institutions and 181 percent at private ones, while median household income has grown by just 17 percent (Education Data Initiative, 2024). These figures illustrate a basic imbalance between institutional pricing and public capacity to pay—a disequilibrium with significant social consequences. Public investment has not kept pace. The…

Part 1 | Educational Leadership Series – The Way Bahamas Meet Keri, an 11th‑grade student at a government high school in Nassau. Every morning she wakes up hoping today will be different—hoping she can stay with the roll call, keep up with the lesson, maybe even understand the new material the teacher puts on the board. She’s trying. She really is.But the reality she walks into is a heavy one. Her mother works long hours—sometimes two part‑time jobs—to make ends meet. Many nights, Keri goes to bed without knowing if tomorrow’s breakfast will be more than cereal. Some mornings she slips…

Part 2 | Educational Leadership Series – The Way Bahamas In the hallways of our Bahamian secondary schools, many students show up physically—but their minds are wrestling with issues that books and lesson plans don’t cover. For every teacher who calls the roll, there’s a young person whose readiness to learn has been eroded by situations outside the classroom: long hours helping at home, lack of food or space, stress at home, or simply the ripple‑effects of the pandemic. Take a moment to imagine a pupil—let’s call her “Keri.” She’s in Grade 11, determined to succeed, but she carries invisible…

Part 3 | Educational Leadership Series – The Way Bahamas When Keri walked into class that Monday morning, she didn’t bring just her backpack—she carried the weight of her world. The arguments at home from the night before, the anxiety of an empty refrigerator, the constant fear that she might fall behind again. To the casual observer, she was another distracted student. But to an ACE-informed educator, Keri’s behavior isn’t a discipline problem—it’s a distress signal. Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, a leading voice in the field of childhood trauma, has shown how repeated stress in early life—what she calls Adverse…